16 August 2008
Asian-American dramatist David Henry Hwang is here in Manila to present his story of a 19th century Chinese family coping with living in a life being shaped by a deluge of influences from the West.
“This production is a coming-home of many sorts. It’s a coming home of David and the coming home of an experience. There will be actors from New York and they will collaborate with our local artists here,” CCP artistic director Chris Millado said during the press conference.
Directed by Obie awardee Loy Arcenas, the play will run for four weeks in two versions. It will be presented in English for the first two weeks. The Filipino version will be staged in the last two weeks of the schedule that will end on Sept. 7. Dennis Marasigan, artistic director of Tanghalang Pilipino and award-winning filmmaker, provided the translation.
Golden Child premiered at CCP’s Little Theater as the Tanghalang Pilipino’s 22nd theater season opening. It has a powerful ensemble including Irma Adlawan, Liesl Batucan, Tess Jamias, and Leo Rialp. They are joined by New York-based Tina Chilip and Art Acuña (an Obie winner for Magno Rubio), plus the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors’ Company.
“Golden Child is an oral history of my family and it is a major piece of writing I did as a kid. It is based on the story that my grandmother told me 40 years ago,” David told the press. “It’s really thrilling for me to do this production here because I have my roots here in the Philippines. I was 10 years old when my grandmother has fallen ill. So I asked my parents to let me spend my summer vacation here to visit my grandmother in Cebu. At the back of my mind, if she passed away, I wouldn’t be able to retrieve the story of my family,” the playwright added.
The Golden Child
“Golden Child is the title because the lead character refers to his daughter as his golden child or lucky charm in business or whenever he gambles,” David said.
The play is about a Chinese patriarch whose three wives worry about the effect of his apparent interest in Western ways on a household where ancestor worship is observed and traditional rituals are practiced, setting off a power struggle among them.
He decides to turn his back on Chinese customs and converts to Christianity, and his wives’ worries become more pronounced because in Christian tradition, a man has only one woman to call his wife.
His decision results in unexpected consequences he does not plan for nor remotely expects. It is his prized offspring, his golden child, who encourages him to go back to the Philippines and promises to tell great stories about how he made them all born again.
“My mother said that there are lots of events that didn’t happen in our family, but I am just narrating what my grandmother told me,” David laughed.
He added that the pleasant irony about his writing the Golden Child is that his maternal grandmother who has fallen ill didn’t pass away. His grandmother even saw the production in LA and liked it.
The golden playwright
Born and raised in Los Angeles, David Henry Hwang is a contemporary Asian-American playwright who has been acclaimed as one of the most prolific and most successful dramatists in the US.
He was critically acclaimed for his 1988 Tony Award-winning M. Butterfly, which ran for two years on Broadway. The production also won Drama Desk, John Gassner, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The play enjoyed a one-year run on London ‘s West End and has been produced in over three dozen countries to date.
David’s Broadway musicals include his new book for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song, starring Lea Salonga, which earned him his third Tony nomination in 2003 for Best Book of a Musical. He co-wrote the book for Disney’s international hit Aida, with music and lyrics by Elton John and Tim Rice, which won four 2000 Tony Awards and ran over four years on Broadway, and was the book writer of Disney’s Tarzan, with songs by Phil Collins, which is currently a smash hit in Europe.
His play Golden Child premiered off-Broadway at the Joseph Papp Public Theater, received a 1997 Obie Award for playwriting and subsequently moved to Broadway, where it received three 1998 Tony nominations, including Best New Play. The Manila production of this play is produced by arrangement with Hal Leonard Australia Pty. Ltd., on behalf of Dramatists Play Service Inc., New York.
The regular ticket price is P600 and P300 pesos for students.
For more information, call 832-3661, 832-3704 or 891-9999.
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